Page 7 of The Summers of Us

He takes his shirt off and throws it into the darkness behind us.

“God, Holden.” Haven rolls her eyes and looks at Mason. “How do you handle him?”

Mason snickers. “I don’t.”

“What? I don’t want to smell like fire later.”

We’re sure to smell like burnt wood by the end of the night—even Holden’s tossed shirt—but that’s one of my favorite scents to shower away, right next to sunscreen.

Mason’s the first to dig in to the marshmallows. Holden lets his entire marshmallow burst into flames while everyone else spins their marshmallow gently at the top of the flames.

I let the flame burn my marshmallow a toasty brown shell, squish it between two graham crackers, and let it melt the chocolate before my mouth does the rest.

Over s’mores, Haven tells the story of how she and Jorge started dating. It started with a mutual agreement to go to prom together but ended with a midnight chat in the car over cherry slushies. They had their first date at Hammerhead’s and Holden asked to wait tables that night. He filled their sodas every five minutes and brought out five baskets of hush puppies.

“Your first mistake was having your first date at our job,” Holden says. “Your second mistake was going out with him.” He throws a marshmallow at Jorge.

Jorge catches it and throws it in his mouth. “Love you too, man.”

I point at Holden. “Yourmistake was stalking Haven on her first date.”

He throws his hands up. “I was keeping my baby sister safe.”

“I was born two minutesbefore you,” Haven says.

He shrugs. “The point still stands.”

I imagine Holden peering around the doorframe during the date. He’s a walking juxtaposition—a boxer holding a kitten, a secret riptide on a calm ocean. He can try to intimidate Jorge, but I’m sure all he did was look like a duck who thinks fluffing its feathers is scary.

We take turns telling stories from the past year apart. Everett talks about his valedictorian speech, how he smirked at Jorge before he started. Haven recounts winning prom queen and accepting her tiara and sash after she spilled barbecue sauce on her dress.

In the middle of my second s’more, the fire starts to feel too hot. My face loses its smile. A ringing in my ears replaces the sweet sound of catching up with my best friends. This is the empty feeling that sweeps over me sometimes. It’s always uninvited, but I’ve gotten better at riding it out.

Empty used to be something I craved—schedules, thoughts, bags before beachcombing. Sometimes empty is the fullest a person can be. Now, I’m empty the way that empty things suck—promises, hearts, bagsafterbeachcombing.

I lie back in the beach chair, lift my chin to cool my cheeks. I can’t find the stars past the golden orb of flame, but soon enough, this feeling will pass. Itisnice to be back in Piper Island. Even though the same moon spills everywhere, this is the sky I’ve spent the last eight summers with. Piper Island is where Everett is my second moon. Piper Island is where I grew up, in an ideal world where growing is only impacted by what happens in the summer, where life can only be shaped by summer.

Only now, I wish for the opposite.

Everyone else laughs with reckless abandon around the fire. I wish I could be like them instead of slowly nodding and forcing a fake smile. Green envy tugs at me, a monster I’ve gotten to know well.

“What are your plans this summer, Q?” Haven asks.

I shrug, a shallow smile on my face. “I don’t know. Blair didn’t have an itinerary for me today.”

Summer was always a season of turning the mundane into something special, thanks to Blair. I still remember what she once wrote in a book she gifted me a few summers back:This summer, keep doing that living you do. Maybe fall in love while you’re at it? Love, Blair.

But this is our last summer before college, so the six of us are on the precipice of greatness. We’re dangling off a cliff’s edge, jumping over the clock ticking at double speed. I want to stop time and fill it with life again. For me and Blair. Summer at Piper Island is the only way to fall in love with living again.

Holden’s eyes widen. “Let’s make our own. I mean, it’s what we’ve always done.”

“Yeah, go get something to write with,” Haven says.

I run inside and fish Blair’s pink gel pen from the junk drawer Everett and I organized earlier. Igrab an old Sunset Scoop receipt that shouldn’t have survived the culling.

Back in the dying heat of the flames, we brainstorm ideas until the early morning officially detaches from the night, speaking the summer’s plans into the cloak of darkness, the stars as our witness.

“Sneak into the waterpark at night.”

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